I know it probably sounds absurd because it's a very common term but I just recently got into games like this and I've never seen it used before and no matter how hard I look I can't seem to find out what it means.

I would appreciate if someone could just give me a quick definition or something of that sort in regards to it, thank you.

DanBear said:

A 'vanilla' dungeon is an unofficial term for a normal dungeon from the base game or any of the base expansions - JitD, WoD, AoD or ToI.
A 'non-vanilla' dungeon is any dungeon from the Advanced Campaigns - RtL or SoB.
(you should be able to figure out those acronyms )

Because there are signififcant differences between Advanced Campaign play and normal play, in particular with reference to dungeon size, proportions of glyphs, coins and chests, and the availability of potions the two (vanilla and Advance Campaign) are not suitable for mixing, though some people seem to want to for no apparent reason.

Actually the word 'Vanilla' is a slang for basic or plain and undecorated. (Just like the plain ice cream flavor many of us love)

When u say vanilla dungeon it means dungeon without extra stuff like expansions. When u say vanilla girl, she's an average typical girl.

Wanderer999 said:

You're not wrong, although Corbon's answer is more accurate. Most of us around here DO refer to the dungeons in Well of Darkness, Altar of Despair and Tomb of Ice as "vanilla" dungeons even though they technically come from expansions and incorporate the other expansion materials contained therein.

The term "Vanilla" is definitely used in a variety of places as you describe it; board games, card games, even video games that have a strong modding community. Descent is a bit different, though. Here it's used less to distinguish between modified and unmodified, expansion or non-expansion, and more to distinguish between the original game mode and the Advanced Camapign mode.

"Vanilla Descent" is just easier to say than "Non Advanced Campaign Descent" or "Non Advanced and Non Simple Campaign Descent". Typically when us on the boards refer to "Vanilla Descent" we do mean Descent + non-Advanced-Campaign expansions (in this case Descent + AoD + WoD + ToI).

-shnar

While we're at it, when people simply say "campaign" game, 9 times out of 10 they're referring to the Advanced Campaign. The basic campaign described on the front of the quest book in JitD is widely regarded to be pointless and not worth using.